


Cold

by BasementVampire



Category: The Giver Series - Lois Lowry
Genre: Alternate Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 22:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6678397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasementVampire/pseuds/BasementVampire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate ending to Lois Lowry's The Giver, written for my English class.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for English a while ago, thought I'd post it here. Enjoy!

Icy air bit at Jonas’s face as the sled rocketed downhill.  Snow had soaked through his shoes and his fingers were stiff and numb, but he kept his eyes trained on the blurry lights ahead when they weren’t forced shut by the freezing, snow-flecked wind.

If it wasn’t for the cold, achy pain running through his body, he would have thought this was all a dream.  The events of the past weeks seemed like a swirling illusory hallucination.  For days, Jonas had repeated a series of statements he knew to be fact, like a mantra, so he wouldn’t lose the truth amid his frozen, hunger-clouded haze. 

_My name is Jonas.  I am the Receiver of Memory.  I escaped the community.  I took baby Gabriel with me._

Over and over he repeated these words.  Other thoughts stabbed at his conscious— _“I’m starving”_ and _“I’m cold”_ and _“I’m scared”_ —but he didn’t dare voice these aloud lest they become all the more real.

Lost in his thoughts, Jonas almost missed it as he blinked snow flurries away from his eyes—the sled was thirty feet from barreling dead on into a large rock jutting out of the thick blanket of white.  Raspy breaths left his mouth in visible puffs as he fumbled for the red rope that lay in front of his knees.  He grasped at it with one hand, Gabriel in the other, but his vision was bleary and he couldn’t feel his hands.

Jonas let out a grunt and yanked the sled roughly to the side.  The edge clipped the rock and suddenly everything was spinning as he hurtled, shrieking, off the sled and through the air.  He skittered violently across the icy ground, arms tightening instinctively around the baby.  His eyes snapped shut.

At last Jonas came to a jarring stop, the back of his head slamming harshly against the semi-solid snow.  The gasp he let out was a ragged, broken sound.  His body hurt horribly.  He was so cold he didn’t even know where—everywhere, probably.  Jonas was simultaneously numb and on fire.  He lay still, head tilted to the side, as a stream of warm, sticky blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth and down his cheek.  The drops left a deep red stain in stark contrast to the white of the snow.  Gabriel whimpered against his chest, and one of his little fists clutched at the air. 

The two had laid there for an indeterminable amount of time, when Jonas sensed something warm embrace him.

_Someone’s come to help us._

It felt like somebody had picked him up in their arms, ready to carry him off to the fireplace and the Christmas lights and the _love_.

Or maybe it was just a memory.


End file.
